The G-20 Leaders Must Be Stupid Too.

Since the president of the United States and his supporters generally have delivered themselves of their considered opinion that the reason the US electorate gave the nod overwhelmingly to the Republicans was the sheer inability of We the People to comprehend the brilliant success of the progressive agenda, it will be surprising if the president and his people do not come to the same conclusion regarding the nineteen non-US heads of state assembled in Seoul.  How could it have been anything other than either (1) fear or (2) lack of intellectual horsepower which caused the Other 19 to fail to agree with the Obama assessment that the world needed more stimulus and less deficit reduction.

Since it is apparently impossible for Mr Obama to see that he is swimming upstream while all others are headed downstream,  there can be no rational explanation for the rejection of the stimulus heavy approach espoused by the American administration--and a handful of survivors in Congress.  An akin explanation must apply to the severe questioning not to say cross-examination given Mr Obama regarding the current US policy of cheapening the dollar.

The experience must have been unpleasant for the Nice Young Man From Chicago.  He was no longer the man of the hour, no longer the cynosure of the good, the true, the beautiful, the utopia of hope and change.  He was, it seems, not even first among equals.  The pride of place which has so long and seemingly without effort belonged to the US and its president seemed to have slipped insensibly to a land far, far to the east.

The president's discomfort was all too evident at the press conference where he attempted to claim that he had lost no "clout" simply because the American voters had chosen the way they did a few days earlier.  In the face of reportorial doubt, Mr Obama kept insisting that dealing with the Trolls of Beijing had been just as hard in those now long gone halcyon days of exoatmospheric popularity.  The election, he kept repeating, had done nothing to weaken his hand on the global stage.

Showing a generosity in defeat worthy of tennis at its finest, Mr Obama made nice noises in the direction of Beijing.  There is no doubt but the Trolls bested the (Clueless) Guy in the Oval on the matter of currency revaluation.  There is equally little doubt but the Trolls left Seoul with a bit more swagger than when they arrived.  They were home free on the little issue of artificially low value for the yuan.  And, best of all, no one supported the US demand that change be made.

The president was equally unsuccessful in selling the American policy of "quantitative easing."  The consensus among most of the Other Nineteen was the US sought to displace the real costs of its current and past government borrowing sprees onto the lenders as the net long term effect would be inflation cheapened dollars.  Considering the vast quantity of Treasury notes held by China it isn't too hard to guess what country was most displeased.  Of course, other countries such as Germany which are heavily export dependent as well as being direct competitors with the US may have been rather less worried about the long term value of their holdings than about the short range impact of lower costs for American made merchandise.  (Bad Geek! Only a cynic would think that.)

Regardless of the merits of the positions taken by Mr Obama, the name of the game in Seoul as in all international meetings, multilateral or bilateral, is "power."  And. as the flaccid final communique demonstrated, while the US might have influenced the agenda, it did not have any discernible impact on the results.

The Other Nineteen made the same basic evaluation as had the majority of the voters here just over a week ago.  The determination was simple.  Mr Obama had lost the juice because his policies were as wrong as a cat barking.  The explosive development of the American deficit on Obama's watch coupled with the determination shown by the president to keep on with the same old toss-money-by-the-supertanker-load approach to economic and political life to assure a loss of confidence in the good sense and judgement of the American president.  This conclusion would have been exacerbated in effect by the uncertainty attendant upon the Republican gains in Congress.

There must have been a subtext of genuine apprehension in Seoul regarding the impact of divided government prevailing for the next two years in Washington.  Given the strident ideological tone of the election on the part of both parties, apprehension as to what might play out and how it will effect the American economy and deficit was justified.  It becomes even more justified given the persistent inability of Mr Obama to act the role of decisive leader as opposed to temporizing, academic quasi-intellectual able to see all sides of the same issue.

Had Mr Obama shown any skill at leadership, any willingness to both say "here I stand, I can do no other" and act accordingly, the reluctance of others in the Nineteen to follow an American lead would have been lessened.  Put bluntly, Mr Obama has shown himself non-credible as an international leader.  He has neither the force of personality, the strength of character, or the constancy of action to serve the demands of imposing one's will on the heads of other states, heads which are able, egoistic, and committed to the national interest of their own countries.

In comparison, the Trolls of Beijing are totally credible.  Their policies are consistent, realistic, and serve national interest completely.  The words and deeds of the Trolls coincide.  They are predictable--and predictability is the greatest asset a government can have in international politics.  While there is much to criticize regarding the stance and policies of the Trolls, one is sure as to what they will do.

The same applies to other players both developed and emerging.  The governments of France, Germany, the UK, Russia, India are all predictable.  None are diving off the highest precipices of ideology.  All are pursuing well established, easy to understand national interest.  In short, they are reliable.

When the national interests and consequent policies of each of the G-20 states is examined closely, it is evident the US and its current president are the odd one.  Alone, the US lacks both a congruent foreign and international economic policy schemata.  Alone, the US lacks a clear, readily comprehended, clearly stated set of national interests.  (Slogans regarding the desirability of more American jobs do not count.)

The Other Nineteen individually judged the adequacy of American policies--and the American president.  Both came out wanting.  In short, these leaders and their advisors confirmed the earlier judgement of We the People.  There was nothing stupid about that.

Obama's Confused Reaction To Certain Events Last Tuesday

The president is finally off on his oft postponed and modified trip to Asia.  He is going to India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan.  In addition to the country visits, he will be making a pitch for currency and trade reform at the G20 meeting in Seoul.  Up until now, the trip was all about international security, international trade, that old reliable, Muslim outreach and its dark side, the struggle with certain unnamed "extremest elements."

Now, having partially digested the unpalatable results of the midterm election as well as the most recent and, as expected, lackluster report on employment, the Nice Young Man From Chicago has decided quite suddenly that the real goal of the trip will be job creation.  He is proposing to schlep a bunch of corporate heavies along with him in order to "open markets" in Asia and thus, create jobs in the US.  (Oh, and dragging the movers and shakers of whatever passes for American industry today will also prove that the Most Progressive President Ever has gotten over his hatred of free enterprise.)

One has to wonder just who Mr Obama believes he is fooling with this rather transparent gambit.  India is not particularly closed to American goods and services.  And, thanks in large part to federal government policies is a major recipient of jobs once occupied by Americans.  Beyond that, Indonesia has already been well and truly penetrated by Chinese manufacturers and merchants such that the place has become the frontline in conflict between traditionalist Muslims and goody loving Indonesians.  The pie is only so large given the relative poverty of most of the Indonesian population and the Chinese got there with a very big fork years ago.

South Korea is not a destination for American made consumer products--if there are any more being made here even though it has a very healthy appetite for industrial durables with the Made In America label.  That segment is large but unlikely to grow markedly in the short run no matter how much the smooth talking Guy In The Oval may wish otherwise.  Since the US already does well there even in the face of Japanese and, to a lesser extent, Chinese competition, South Korean industrial demand is not going to force the hiring of too many new workers in the US.

Even if the Japanese could be convinced to drop some of their barriers against American imports, the nature of the deflation predicated economy there is not one conducive to an enhanced demand for US products.  A little increase in the import of agricultural produce will not translate into decreased unemployment here.

There is little doubt but the G-20 meeting is important to the American economic future.  Questions of currency valuation and trade asymmetries directly and substantially impact American employment.  Here the elections last Tuesday may play a role.  But, not a role which will add luster or influence to the Obama stance.  The undercutting of the president's perceived functional legitimacy provided by the election will in no way serve to convince the Chinese (for example) that a revaluation of their currency is necessary.  Indeed, support in the G-20 for the dethronement of the dollar may gain strength given the perceived weakness of the American president as well as the US economy.  Of course, dethronement might not be all bad for the US in the longer haul much as the prospect of weaker dollars equally increased imported oil costs may be disturbing short term.

The real deal for the trip has not changed regardless of presidential protestations to the contrary.  India is a crucial country for American interests short-, mid-, and long-term.  Stripped to the essentials, India is a viable strategic partner in the ongoing Afghan Affray.  It is even more important as an ally in overall regional dynamics, a counterweight to Pakistan, China, and even Iran.

Given the number of coinciding national interests as well as a wide array of common political and economic norms, the fit of India with the US is tolerably good.  As a consequence, a positive engagement with India on topics ranging from the real and pressing such as regional stability to the distant and tenuous such as climate change is in our mutual interests.

Then there is the problem of Pakistan or, more accurately, the Kashmir Question.  As Pakistan sees all foreign affairs through the prism of conflict with India, so also does India.  Obama will refuse to take a position on Kashmir, which means he will not push the Indian government on its Cold Start doctrine.  The existence of Cold Start provides Pakistan with the justification necessary to reject committing sufficient forces in the anti-Taliban campaign in the FATA.

At some point the president and his "team" will have to confront Cold Start.  Kashmir will have to be factored in to our diplomatic equation if the relation with India is to mature and meet its potential.  In its way, Kashmir is as intractable a problem as that presented by Palestine.  Not only are there the rival claims of India and Pakistan.  Not only is there the history of recurrent and ultimately indecisive warfare.  There is also a large and growing independence movement within the Kashmir population on both sides of the Line of Control.

Given the almost infantile intransigence of the Pakistani government, which has shown the diplomatic ineptitude typical of the Palestinians, it is the existence of an independence movement which provides a window of opportunity.  The Indian government might not like the notion of "surrendering" its portion of the disputed land to an independent state but is realistic enough to see this move as a rational alternative which would liberate it from not only Cold Start but the other risky and expensive features of perpetual readiness for potentially nuclear war with Pakistan.

Mr Obama would not be out of line to bring up the potential resident in an independent Kashmir--which could not exist without the cooperation of India.  Contrasting the maturity of India which has been so strikingly evident over the past decade with the unconstructive and primitive role played by Islamabad in Kashmir and elsewhere in the same period would go some way to orienting the Indians in the right direction.

(Such a demarche, even in a most preliminary way would get back to Islamabad without a doubt.  That would be good.  It would put the Pakistanis on notice that their never ending extortion game had come to an end.  The government would have to choose sides finally and permanently: Violent political Islam or civilized state.)

Having been the beneficiaries of a "tilt" in American foreign policy for so many of the past fifty or sixty years, the Pakistanis are well equipped to understand just what would be meant by a tilt in favor of India.  A reversal in the direction of American favors would portend far more than the mere ending of the dollar gusher.  Nor could Islamabad comfort itself with believing it could replace US patronage with Chinese on a one to one basis.  The Chinese calculate far more shrewdly than do the Americans, so they will seek advantage only on the cheap.

Indonesia presents problems of a different sort.  The optics from the Obama administration will be at an automatic sharp contrast with the notion that the trip is all about jobs.  The president is scheduled to make a major speech at a mosque.  The speech no doubt will be very well attended.  It is debatable that one more genuflection before the Muslim alter will play well back in the US, particularly as there is no credible way it can be associated with creating either jobs at home or peace in the world.

It is often proclaimed that Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world.  True.  Also it is repeatedly said that Indonesia is a beacon of tolerance and peace, a true tribute to Islam's pacifistic and open minded nature.  Not true.

Thanks in large part to Wahhibist outreached fueled by Saudi petrodollars, there are large pockets of believers who have accepted the notion of violent political Islam.  While true international terror attacks have been absent since the Bali bombing, the use of violence and its twin, terror, domestically has grown.  The Mighty Warriors of Allah have singled out Christians and denominations of Islam falling outside the austere purview of Wahhibism as targets.  In Aceh, Shariah has been adopted to the extent that there exists a dual track judicial system.  Most recently there have been Islamist attacks on Chinese owned malls and stores.

Violent political Islam is alive, well, and growing in Indonesia.  The government and its supporting elite know this and are dreading the inevitable confrontation.  The long history of internal conflict which was widely believed to have ended is showing its demise to have been premature.  The president is going to have to address this ground truth at least in private meetings and would be well advised not to go out on too long a branch publicly, not to praise Indonesian peace and tolerance too effusively.  The words might come back to bite before too long.

It is most unfortunate that Mr Obama repackaged his Asian tour as one of jobs promotion.  While the lack of jobs may have been the single most important cause of the "shellacking" received by Obama's party, it was not the only one by a long shot.  Also important was the president's long standing tradition of not being completely honest with We the People.  It seems pathetic at the least that one of his first responses to defeat was to lie.

Obama's Gotta Wonder--Is Anybody Listening?

For a long time now whenever an American president has spoken, the world has listened. The global (and domestic) audience might not have liked what they heard, but ears were attentive, brains were engaged. As recently as last year the American president was both heard and heeded on matters both great and small. If nothing else people were ready and willing to hope that the new voice meant substantial and positive change in affairs ranging from health care at home to a globe ranging recession and the very nasty little war in a very faraway place.

In recent months, weeks, even days, the situation has reversed course with an abruptness which startles the observer. Bluntly put, a new dynamic exists, a new dynamic which bloomed with stunning rapidity, a new dynamic in which no one really cares what the American president might say--other than to dismiss the words as not having been worthy of hearing.

There are two excellent indicators of this new dynamic. One comes from the domestic front in the familiar form of a poll. The other comes from the nations comprising the G-20 nations, in the quite unfamiliar form of flat rejection.

The most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted between 17 and 21 June shows that Mr Obama and his progressive agenda have been rejected by very significant pluralities of We The People. The numbers, particularly the sixty-two percent who believe "the country is headed down the wrong path," are those one would expect from, say, a Rasmussen, or even a Republican Party sponsored "push poll" not one from the WSJ/NBC News folks.

There are, of course, many inputs to this new domestic perspective. These include the nature and extent of the Great Transformational Agenda so beloved by the Progressive Caucus and the Man in the Oval but which violates the American propensity for modest changes achieved slowly. There are other, equally or more important factors involved. The administration's response to the BP oil blowout is one. The failure of the economic stimulus packages is another. Even the evident erosion of American influence around the world plays a role.

There is no little probability that the president's action of yesterday--firing McChrystal and replacing him with a man who is a highly regarded political general but no warfighter--will add more suspicion and distrust to the mix in the weeks to come, particularly if General Petraeus alters the McChrystal strategy and operational plans. The net effect of appeasement, getting tough with Israel, bowing to a Saudi king, appearing far less than resolute when faced by an act of war by North Korea, kicking the British in the crotch, encouraging the Russians to behave more and more like the Soviets of bygone days, has been to lessen America in the eyes of the world and the American president in the esteem of We the People.

The more head snapping demonstration of the new dynamic comes from the G-20, more specifically the European members of the assemblage of the largest economies. You recall that Mr Obama sent a letter to the heads of government of all G-20 states which, in essence, begged one and all not to become deficit hawks but rather to continue along with the US on the path of stimulus spending.

Apparently, the political advisers who line the walls of the Oval like vultures around the slaughter house came to realize that the Social Democrat propelled states of Europe had reversed course with the blinding rapidity more characteristic of a school of tropical fish than a cluster of European parliamentarians. In a femtosecond or less, the several European states had gone from their traditional stance of cradle-to-grave benefits provided by other people's money to a posture of austerity severe enough to bring a smile to the face of Messrs Calvin and Knox.

At the same time, the US continued to cruise along fueled by money which is not our own in pursuit of the Great Transformational Agenda. The Sages of Politics feared that this lonely position might impose a political cost on the Democratic Party and the incumbent president. So, the begging letter emerged.

It was written. It was signed. It was delivered. It was ignored. With greater or lesser degrees of courtesy, the American president's plea for unity was blown off. Blown off by one and all. The Eurocrats had come to the conclusion that there were times when the US should be quite unilateral.

The irony in this is as tasty as a triple chocolate cake. The American president in common with many of the American hoi oligoi sees Western Europe with its economic and political philosophy of democratic socialism, its post-modernist languor, its cultural relativism, to be the most seductive of Edens, the most attractive of Paradises, the capstone of ten and more cycles of centuries of human "progress."

"If only we could be more like them," came the lovelorn sigh of thousands of Americans, members in good standing of the self-appointed elites of politics, media, and academe.

Just as the new American president seemed to be leading his people successfully out of the wasteland of America-past and into the Promised Land of Europe-West, a not-so-funny thing happed over in the Continent of Dreams. The place morphed overnight it seemed from the Repository of All Things Great to a a remake of the Old USA.

Benefits beyond count, vacations which never ended, being held harmless against all perils foreign and domestic, became suddenly, shockingly, totally yesterday. In a flash, the good life, the "third life," la dolce vita, was cast aside, to be replaced with the pain and suffering, the sackcloth and ashes of austerity.

Say it ain't so, Joe! Say it ain't so, Barack! Nancy! Somebody! Anybody?

But, it is so. And, the US is alone. Swimming upstream. Headed by a leader to whom no one will listen. Urged on by a voice unheard in the world and increasingly unheeded or unbelieved by those of us who are members of We the People but not card carrying adherents of the domestic elite.

Once, not that many months ago, a conveniently unnamed aid to the Man in the Oval (in)famously remarked, "We were elected to preside over the graceful decline of the United States." Now it appears that We the People unwittingly elected a man destined to preside over, not the decline, but the defeat of the US.

We elected the man for a number of reasons. Some of us practiced identity politics--placing the subgroup of ethnic, racial, religious, economic, or ideological affiliation above the primary loyalty to the US. Some of us voted from a basis of frustration and alienation, terminally fried off by the hypocrisy and duplicity of the Bush/Cheney years. Still others of us were taken in by the false flag campaign of Mr Obama. (Of course that latter is no excuse as all political campaigns are to some extent of the false flag sort and experience should have made us too hip to have been taken in by the "hope and change" slogans coming from the TelePrompter propelled mouth over the palpably empty suit.)

In any event We the People still have some faint chance of forestalling our looming defeat in the world. If nothing else we can take a clue from the Europeans. That's right, boyo, the Europeans.

The European hoi polloi have shouted "enough is enough!" The common men and women of West Europe have had it up to their dandruff with cultural relativism, multi-culturalism, the surrendering of painfully won defining institutions and values to the new barbarians, the hordes of arrivals from the primitive regions of the Islamic world.

We can do no less. And, no more. Tolerance, forbearance, and diversity are valuable values, but none mean we must abandon the unique features and attributes which have served so well for so long to make us a self-conscious entity.

Now European politicians are demanding of their people (and in the case of the new British government, themselves) that individuals no longer ask, "what's in it for me?" but rather ask, "how will this benefit us all?" European politicians are seeking to force a powerful and painful change upon their societies and polities, a change from indulgence to sacrifice, a shift from give-it-to-me-now! to delay-for-a-better-future. They are asking the nearly impossible--to surrender an overly pleasurable today for the prospect of an OK tomorrow.

We can do no less. Since so few of our political figures are willing or able to emulate their European counterparts, We the People must demand that they do so. This is to ask of ourselves something even more strenuous, more arduous than the European politicians have asked of their publics.

Yeah, that's where it is at--demand that our politicians demand of us both austerity and the accompanying sacrifice of our version of la dolce vita.

It may be an impossible task for us to undertake. However, the alternative, the defeat of the US, makes the task not only important but central--if we are to have a tomorrow.

A Week To Change The World?

President Obama has taken the statement of the famed landscape architect Daniel Burnham to heart, "Make no small plans." The Nice Young Man From Chicago, the city in which Burnham did some of his finest work over a century ago, promised to "change the world." That is no small plan.

In the days to come Mr Obama will be at the center of the world stage both at the UN General Assembly opening session and later at the G-20 conference in Pittsburgh. In the shadows, just outside the spotlight's glare in New York, the president will have one-on-one meetings with most of the heavyweights of global politics.

The president will be out to move the process of combating anthropogenic climate change. He will push financial reform. As if those weren't enough, the man will be attempting to once again lever the "Mideast peace process" off of top dead center. Then, of course, there are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the one over in most essential respects, and the other still up for grabs.

Looming over all the grand plans seeing the US heading the charge of the "international community" against the evils of financial instability, global climate alteration, environmental pollution, and ad infinitum will be the mushroom shaped shade of Iran and its quest for the "Mahdi Bomb." And, the "international community's" failure to address the fear it produces both in the region and elsewhere.

In the process of seeking to be Global Saviour, Mr Obama is operating under a substantial handicap. He is an idealistic, ideologically committed True Believer. He (and many surrounding him, including his Secretary of State) is firmly convinced that the long running era of nationalism is dead. And, that the world is better off for it.

He is not alone in this Holy Grail of faith. It is the shared intellectual heritage of many, but far from most, Americans and Western Europeans: The elites, the academics, the chattering classes, the pundits and some "progressive" politicians. The assemblage of those who know what is best for the rest of us are firmly wedded to the attractive but debatable bumper sticker slogan, "We are all passengers on space ship Earth."

While Mr Obama, Ms Clinton, Ms Rice, and a host of others clasp this faith with the fervor of a Baptist thrust into a whorehouse, its pervasiveness around the world is questionable at best.

The vast majority of the globe's presidents, prime ministers, kings, princes, and potentates in common with the hoi polloi generally still run on the idea of "my country first, foremost, and always." The ground truth is simply that nationalism as a source of international conduct is not dead. It is not on life support. It isn't decayed, feeble, tottering to the shelter of An Old Ideas Home.

The world is not ready for change if that change means or even hints at the abandonment of national self-interest, self-defined. The world is not ready for change if that means or even hints at the acceptance of sacrifice on the part of a people, a government, a nation for some abstract principle or remote, vaguely defined menace. The world is not ready for change if that means or even hints at the surrender of a single iota of national sovereignty or national autonomy to some higher level of government--particularly one which acts at the global level.

It is true that the countries of the European Union have slid some measure of historical sovereignty to the bureaucrats of Brussels, but that movement has come in large measure because the benefits to the hoi polloi have outweighed the losses, and the impairment of the member countries' governments to operate as sovereign states has not been overly burdensome. Nonetheless, it must be noted that the EU is not overly popular with many of the respective populations and is not so well embedded in history as to be immutable.

Also, it must be recalled when thinking of the EU as a supra-national government and seeing it as a potential paradigm for the world's future that Europe fought a two act internal war during the Twentieth Century at enormous cost in lives, treasure, and national self-confidence. It also deserves remembering that the EU emerged organically and evolved over time in response to changing conditions within the "family" as well as globally. Finally, it needs to be noted that all is far from sweetness and love within the EU and, when push comes to shove, each major country will meet its own needs first no matter what the cost to others.

Whether from the bastions of the EU or the benighted rest of the world, nationalism will be supreme at both the UN and the G-20. In each of these fora, the participants will seek to pursue to the greatest extent possible their own self-defined national interest.

Unless President Obama pursues US national interest with the same persistence, the same single minded determination with which the leaders and delegates from other countries such as Russia, China, Japan, and even paragons of the EU such as Germany, France, and the UK, the US will suffer. Of course, the pursuit of American national and strategic interest does not require the sort of high-handed arrogance which marked the Bush/Cheney administration, but it does require a firm understanding of what sort of world best meets the requirements of our national interests.

On the matter of anthropogenic climate change, if it is assumed (the word is chosen carefully) that human produced carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" are provably responsible for a significant percentage of the presumed (again the word is chosen carefully) increase in mean global temperatures, efforts to reduce their emission should not be done in a way which places the US at a further disadvantage compared to countries such as India and China. To place additional handicaps on American industry is not in the American national interest.

As such, the move is unjustifiable no matter what the alleged benefits might be for countries in Africa or within the small island nation category. Mr Obama and others in his administration must remember that their sole reason for existence as a government is to protect and advance the interests of Americans and the American nation. If others in other countries benefit as well, that is pure frosting on the cake.

Historically and contemporaneously, no government has willingly put its own country, its own citizenry, at risk in order that others might gain advantage. If "changing the world"means lessening the present and future prospects of Americans and the US, it is both politically unacceptable and self-injurious to those who do so.

The same is true with respect to reordering the global financial system. The limit to largess, the boundary of sacrifice for the US is established by a palpable degeneration of the American economy. While there is room for change, for improvement in the financial affairs of the globe, it must be an improvement which does not impair the US or the majority of its citizens. This does not imply that merely because the US has the world's largest economy or when the US markets sneeze much of the world catches pneumonia that global financial policies should be dictated by the US but rather that the inclusion of other advanced and developing economies in the decision making process must be done in a way which does not shackle the American economy convoy to the speed of the slowest ship.

Bi-lateral relations whether with allies such as the UK or Israel or with adversaries such as China and Russia must be viewed through the lens of American self-interest. To that end it is necessary to establish what is actually at stake for American interests in the Mideast, or in the Persian Gulf, or Asia.

To the credit of the Obama administration some halting efforts have been made to establish the actual stakes in play for the US in the Mideast. Unfortunately, in the process the nature and character of Islam as a motivator for intransigence, for hostility, have been underrated.

China has been seen far too much as a source of cash than a rival for regional and global authority. The Obama administration and the "progressives" in Congress have been too willing to view China as a cash cow to be milked for the benefit of beloved domestic programs to properly evaluate it as a present and future threat to our national and strategic interests. The most precious commodity in international relations is influence--and as the diplomatic center of gravity in the Pacific Rim shifts ever eastward, the US fritters away that prized possession.

Russia sees itself--must see itself for internal and historical reasons--as a Great Power. The US must treat Russia as just that regardless of considerations (or facts) to the contrary. Nearly two centuries Tocqueville foresaw that the emerging Great Powers were Russia and the US. He was right then. He is right today. The US needs a collaborative relation with Russia--but only on the basis of national self-interests. That is the only basis understood by the Kremlin, and unless we play the nationalist game, the Putins and Medvedevs of Russia will eat us for breakfast.

Mr Obama has expressed a yearning for a world free of nuclear weapons. That is a fine ideal. It is the sort of thing that livens faculty gatherings, church conflabs, and meetings of the high minded, lofty thinking sort. It is also an unachievable goal in the present world--or that of the foreseeable future.

Even the far lesser goal of inhibiting nuclear proliferation is nearly impossible to reach. As the recent events in Pakistan, North Korea, Syria, and Iran make manifest, there is no credible international structure which can inhibit nuclear proliferation with certainty. The existence of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency in no way hinders the procurement of a nuclear weapons capability if a country is willing to invest the time, energy, and money into the project.

No matter what arrangements may exist on paper, in treaties, in the most sacred covenants between nations; no matter what international institutions may be created to monitor nuclear research and development; countries with the dedication and moxie necessary will be able to produce nuclear weapons. The best that can be hoped for is the retardation of the rapidity with which a nuclear capacity can be achieved--and often that will require the sort of robust self-help approach which Israel has demonstrated a couple of times.

The challenge for President Obama in part is to pursue American national and strategic interests in ways which do not alarm others, do not precipitate the sort of hostility which the approach of George W. Bush did. The other part of the challenge, the one which is inherently very difficult for the True Believer, is not to overlook the supremacy of national interest in global politics.

It has been easy, disturbingly easy, for Mr Obama to demonstrate that he is not George W. Bush. He has already met the first, smaller part of the challenge. He has not yet shown that he understands the reality that the majority of the world's leaders and people do not share the vision of the post-nationalist world so beloved by himself and others in his coterie.

Next week, both in New York and Pittsburgh, both in the spotlight and in the shadows, Mr Obama has the opportunity to show that he is the American president. That he pursues American interests first, foremost, and always. That he has a realistic grip on the needs of the US in the world today. That he is able to balance properly the overriding interests of the US with the desires of the rest of the world.

If the President can meet the second, larger, part of the challenge, he may not "change the world" but there is a fair chance he will make it better.

September--The Latest Drop Dead Date

The G-8 (augmented) labored mightily in the mountains of Italy and the mountain brought forth a mouse. Specifically the assembled statesmen(?) declared that if negotiations with Iran regarding its nuclear weapons program are not successful by the time the G-20 meets in (of all places) Pittsburgh next September, well, by golly, we might just have to do something.

France's reasonably robust and undeniably given to realism president, Nicholas Sarkozy, had wanted the amphyctony of financial and industrial might to take genuine action sooner, as in right now, but was outflanked by the Obama administration which is fearful of any "tough" action "backfiring" and, presumably, allowing extremists to put their hands on the levers of power in Tehran. The Nice Young Man From Chicago was joined in the effort to block meaningful economic sanctions by Russia which is pursuing its own interests in Iran.

Germany apparently did what Germany does so well--waffle and equivocate. Sure, the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran does bother some in the Berlin government, but the prospect of losing billions of dollars worth of business in Iran shakes the Krauts a lot more.

The Chinese president probably made his regime's typical noises about the incorrectness of meddling in the "internal affairs" of Iran before departing with undue haste to deal with the latest outbreak of Islamic unrest in the far west of China. On the up side, the fleeing of the Grand Mandarin from the Center Kingdom made the job of the spin doctors much easier.

And spin they did. The Americans whirred and whirled faster than the Iranian centrifuges. The usual posse of unnamed "senior officials" reportedly gave credit to President Obama for having convinced Dimitri Medvedev that the Iranian efforts in nuclear R&D represented a real threat to Russia.

Pleeeze! Give it a rest. And, give us a break!

The Russian government nominally headed by Medvedev but actually honchoed by the "very tough, very smart, and very unsentimental" (to use President Obama's words) Vladimir Putin is perfectly well aware of the potential threat represented by Iran--with or without nuclear arms. Russians tend to be realists in foreign policy matters. As a result the Kremlin has more faith in its own ability to counter the Iranian menace than it does in the ability of different nations with different national interests to collaborate effectively on stopping Iranian ambitions.

Should the day come when the lads in the Kremlin determine to their own satisfaction that the mullahocracy represents a genuine threat, steps will be taken immediately to abate the nuisance. There will be no gnashing of teeth over the "morality" of taking whatever actions are being considered, no consultations with other governments, no seeking UN approval, no hoping that Washington will flash a "green light." None of that sort of thing. Simply a decision leading to action.

One can be sure that the Kremlin will (and probably already has) conveyed the unpleasant possibilities which will befall Tehran should its acts be perceived in Russia as representing an unacceptable level of challenge. While the mullahs may well ignore any Russian warnings, they do so at their peril.

The factors which work to Tehran's advantage when dealing with the US or the West generally do not apply with the Russians. US and Western actions whether genuine sanctions or use of the "military option" are inhibited by a wide range of fears. Governments, whether French, German, British, Italian, or US hate to see their businesses lose contracts and money. More, all of these governments are loath to threaten let alone use force for fear of the Iranian responses and the chaos which might be unleashed on the oil market.

Russia is immune or nearly so to these considerations. Indeed, invocation of the "military option" by the US or Israel is welcomed by the Kremlin--they help Russia's sales of high price, high tech weapons to the Islamic Republic. The potential of Iran turning its Islamist jihadist proxies loose would be scarcely noticed by the Kremlin against the background noise of assorted Islamist jihadist insurgencies already in progress. The "unleashing" of Iranian proxies would assist the Russians in achieving a final solution for the Islamists by muzzling foreign critics of the muscular measures the Russians usually employ in countering insurgents.

And, lest anyone forget, speculation driven spikes in global oil prices can only benefit Russia.

With all of that as context, it is easy to dismiss the "senior American official's" characterization of Obama's come-to-Jesus meeting with Medvedev as flat-out tergiversation. The real deal is simply that Russia is playing the game of nations vis-a-vis Iran far better than is the Obama administration.

In any event the G-8 and the Obama administration have given the mullahocracy and its re-elected frontman, Ahemdinejad, another two months or so to dither, drivel, obfuscate, and bluster. As they do, the foregoing the centrifuges will continue to spin bringing Iran's stock of low enrichment uranium to the level necessary for a rapid breakout in the production of weapon's grade stuff.

The delay taken together with the G-8's apparent acceptance of the electoral facts on the ground after an initial outburst of huffing, puffing, and general hyperventilation make the mullahs and their designated mouthpiece feel more and more secure in their belief that the US and the West generally will never actually do anything which runs the slightest risk.

There is no impetus for any change in either policy or tactics in the latest round of delay. No matter how often one "senior White House official" or another declares that American and Western patience is running thin, there is no reason for the mullahs to believe this to be the case. Dark hints of something bad is going to happen simply haul no freight with the turban-tops of the Islamic Republic.

The record of American and Western actions over the thirty years since the fall of the Shah show that the US and other countries are very, very long on words and very, very short on action. There is simply no basis for the Iranians to conclude that it will be any different when the G-20 convenes in Pittsburgh.

All the Iranians have to do is continue what they have been doing so well and for so long. Hang tough. Talk tough. Make counter accusations. Stonewall. Stonewall some more. And, when all else fails--stonewall some more.

Absent a backroom putsch within the clerical circles of Iran, the Obama administration has only three choices. Accept Iran as a nuclear power along with all that implies. Go for genuine sanctions including restrictions on food sales in the hope this will work. Be ready to say, "You realise, this means war."

The Obama crew might remember a lesson of history: The longer a country waits to make the hard choices, the harder the choices are to make.

"Obama Can't Even Fake An Interest..."

According to one of those usual suspects, an unnamed well-placed, well-informed source, The Telegraph (UK) reports that "He (Obama)can't even fake an interest in foreign policy." The occasion for the remark was an analysis of the badly blundered summit meeting with Gordon Brown.

There is no doubt but the president and his people stiffed the British PM. Any number of reasons have been offered. The Man With the Smile was too preoccupied with the economic catastrophe. The Nice Young Man From Chicago was overloaded having never anticipated the workload which piles on the big desk in the Oval. The Big O should never have made the Health Nazi required pledge to quit smoking.

Then there was the unnamed person reputed to reside at the State Department who decried the very notion of a "special relationship" between the US and the UK. This faceless (and clueless) denizen of Foggy Bottom went on to aver that the UK was simply one of a "150 countries" with which the US does diplomatic business. Rarely, if ever, has a policy extending back three-quarters of a century at the least been tossed aside so cavalierly.

It's time for a change!

It's time for President Obama to go to the mountain and have an epiphany.

It's time for the Nice Young Man From Chicago to get a grip on a ground truth or two.

The first of these foundational realities is the economic catastrophe--or more properly the ambit of Obama's and Congress's of "solutions"--encompasses the world. The US cannot fund the awe inspiring deficits proposed without totally draining whatever investment pool might exist following the proposed tax changes. Even without this latter complication, the vast sums must come in large part from foreign investors including sovereign wealth funds and direct government purchases of our notes.

Of course, foreign ownership of US debt has the very real potential of--shall we say--influencing American foreign policy as to both goals and methods. The Remember-We-Hold-Your-Note ploy can have great and increasing power over whoever sits in the Oval or hangs out in Foggy Bottom.

The unpleasant reality which the President has to get a firm grip on is very simple. The world is full of sharks. The smoothest, most implacable, most lethal of these do not have offices on Wall Street. They sit in the plush chairs in the Kremlin, the Forbidden City, Whitehall, the centers of power in Germany, France, Turkey and even Iran.

These people have been circling in the deep and turbulent waters of international politics searching for the scent of blood, finding prey, avoiding attack for a long,long time. In many cases these sharks of diplomacy have been swimming, striking and evading fatal bits since President Obama was organising the "po folk" in Chicago.

Dealing effectively with interlocutors far more experienced than the Nice Young Man From Chicago requires careful preparation, meticulous planning, and a limited agenda. Even with these necessities firmly in place, the worst can happen.

Another nice young man, John Kennedy,discovered this one fine day in Vienna. He was eaten alive by Khrushchev. The prepared, planned, pragmatic, polished man from Harvard was so much fishbait in the mouth of the vastly experienced Soviet leader.

Arguably, the humiliation and anger JFK felt and expressed on the flight back to the US played a role in his later, unfortunately overly robust foreign policy gambits which not only brought the world very,very close to nuclear war, but dropped our little white butts into the deep kimchee of Vietnam.

Having not yet had either an epiphany or a humiliating defeat by one or more of the assorted land sharks from the chancelleries of the world, the Man With The Smile is about to undertake a dive into the shark pool which would have daunted men with the experience and aplomb of Dwight Eisenhower. In a week of flurry Obama is going to take on NATO, the G-20, the EU and, now, Turkey. Along the way the president is presumed to have one-on-ones with such as Brown and Medvedev (and presumably others as well lest Germany or France feel slighted.)

Now, Mr Obama may have warm, fuzzy memories of his Great European Tour last year. The crowds! The adulation! Weren't they just grand? Sure. So what?

Woodrow Wilson had crowds fainting at his feet in 1918. Babies and streets were named after him by the hundreds. The applause could be heard from Paris to Tokyo. Woody ate it up.

So what? The land sharks from the UK, France and even Italy ate the American president for lunch (and dinner, and, come to think about it, breakfast as well.) The upshots from Wilson's adventure in summit diplomacy ultimately brought the world, inter alia, World War II, the mess in the Mideast, the dissolution of Yugoslavia and sundry other more minor debacles.

Of course, Mr Obama cannot aspire to equal the Wilson record--yet.

It would behoove him, however, to consider carefully the record of the last president who could not "even fake" an interest in foreign affairs. He will not have to look far for a full briefing on it. His administration is littered by retreads from the Clinton Administration.

The Clinton record in foreign policy is far from splendid. Indeed the word "disaster" comes creeping into one's mind. His "successes" such as opening free trade with China have sucked money, manufacturing jobs and technology into the grasp of a country which wishes the US anything but good. NAFTA has not paid off any discernible benefits for either the US or Mexico although Canada may have garnered some.

Most notably, Clinton's weak responses to the emergence of al-Qaeda coupled with his all-too-rapid withdrawal of American forces from Somalia brought in their train the current messes in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan. The misinterpreted success in Bosnia gave plausibility to "shock and awe" and adventures in regime change generally.

The Clinton Administration's concern with process over outcome assured that the North Korean problem would not only be unsolved in its earliest stage but would fester on becoming less amenable to solution with each passing year.

If the Geek could talk face-to-face with the Nice Young President, he would say, "Look, bucko, you have an agenda, I know. You want to change the US in many pertinent parts. That's OK. But, the world ain't going to leave you alone to carry out your Saul Alinsky inspired vision. To have a country which can exist as first among equals in the future you had best do one thing..."

The Geek imagines the dude interrupting, "Give it over, fast!"

"You had best not only fake an interest in foreign policy, you had best get a grip on the reality that foreign policy will in large measure dictate your overall success. Your place in history."

Then the Geek will light a cigarette. The president will eat his heart out.

Helping Countries That Can't Help Themselves

The G 20, comprising the twenty nations which account for some ninety-five percent of the global GDP, is meeting this weekend in Washington, D.C. at the invitation of George W. Bush. The topic is the current global financial contraction.

Nothing much will happen. There will be no big news. The conflab will not take up French President Sarkozy's hyperbolic notion of a "second Bretton Woods," a redrafting of the international financial system. As has already been shown in the European Union, countries will protect their own financial systems first, even at the expense of others. This means words will fill the air. Reporters will file copy. Promises will be made. Shakes and grins will be exchanged by all hands for the benefit of cameras and the "folks back in Buncomb County."

Translated, this means the G-20 meeting will be a load of bunk. Hyped bunk.

The League of the High Minded led by UN SecGen Ban Ki-moon and the capo of the UN's Millennium Development Campaign, Salil Shetty, want the G-20, and more to the point, the G-8, to do a lot more than palaver earnestly and grin for the cameras. These two worthies as well as their equally High Minded supporters want the G-20 nations, or at least the G-8 group, or at the worst the G-7 (that's the G-8 less Russia), to spend a lot of money.

Salil Shetty, showing a rare ability to totally lack a grip on reality, avers that there is no lack of money among the developed nations. He proves his point by noting that the governments of the G-7 and even some of the "emerging" economies such as that of China had no difficulty producing torrents of cash to bail out their crashing banks and other financial institutions.

He concludes that these governments lack the political will to cough up the bucks needed to achieve the Utopian goals set in 2000 for the Millennium Development Campaign. Shetty goes on to argue that if these miserly, self-centered rich countries don't spew out the streams of cash thought to be needed to achieve the grand anti-poverty scheme, all hell will break loose.

Shetty paints a dystopian view of a world absent the successful achievement of the Millennium Goals which out does the bad acid trip visions of the Apocalypse set out by somebody named John. There will be wars beyond count. Disease will run rampant not only in the impoverished areas but everywhere. Presumably wolves would be heard howling in the rubble of a civilization brought down by the selfish greed of countries such as the US which did not pony up the lousy mite of seven tenths of one percent of the GDP.

Ban Ki-moon was not given to the bleak, second rate sci-fi picture of the world in flames. His letter to the jefes of the G-8 was far more restrained. It was no less demanding of urgent, expensive action on the part of the developed nations. The UN SecGen exhorted the rich of the world to "stand in solidarity" with the poorest people of our planet.

(The Geek always chuckles when a "statesman" shows his age by dredging up from the Vault of Treasured Cliches some ancient commie-type motto. In this case it was "to stand in solidarity." The Geek remembers hearing or reading that verbal excretion hundreds, if not thousands, of times back in the Sixties--and not always from foreign sources.)

It's time do something that the Clinton Administration and oh, so many others failed to do back in the glory days of Y2K (and subsequently.) It's time to get a grip.

As a matter of ethics, or if you are religiously inclined, morality, the notion of the prosperous economies giving 0.7% percent of their GDPs to the UN to dole out through a host of programs run by both governmental and non-governmental entities so that extreme poverty might be cut in half by 2015 is completely unobjectionable.

Along with the other components of the Millennium Development Goals, it is even laudatory. Eliminating poverty, enhancing basic education, empowering women, reducing disease, lowering child and maternal mortality, making the world safe for the color green are all worthwhile causes. The Geek can cheer those who would undertake the tasks, rise to the challenge and similar trite, hackneyed cliches.

The attempt by the League of the High Minded, which includes President-elect Obama, to cozen and coerce the citizens of the wealthy countries of the world to accept an involuntary transfer of money from their national economies to the UN and through that entity to a host of governmental bodies and NGOs is neither laudable nor appropriate. The attempt to sell the Utopian ideals embodied in the Millennium Goals as a matter of self-interest and national security on the part of the developed countries is both intellectually and historically dishonest.

The record of foreign aid in terms of its authentic accomplishments, its benefits to either the quality of life for the citizens of recipient nations or the legitimate, definable national and strategic interests of the donor is spotty--at the very best. More often than not, the aid has assisted only intermediaries such as NGOs and bureaucracies, portions of the donor nations' economies, and the personal wealth of members of the recipient nations' elites.

Foreign aid, no matter how well-intentioned, no matter how generous has, with very few exceptions, skewed the economies of the recipients, sapped the internal problem solving capacities of the recipients, fostered long-term dependence on foreign assistance, caused crises of rising expectations, and spread corruption. The Law of Unintended Consequences applies with singular vigor when wealth is transferred for lofty or for basely self-interested reasons.

Since to be successful all foreign policy must begin with a realistic appreciation of national and strategic interests and a clear-eyed understanding of the policy's interlocutor, it is necessary to ask two fundamental questions.

What national security or strategic interest does the US have at stake in any particular impoverished society and its (typically) inept, corrupt and barely legitimate country? To put it another way: Does it really matter to the present and future security and prosperity of the US and its citizens if a country, say the Democratic Republic of Congo, energetically disassembles in a welter of blood and body parts?

The second question is equally blunt. Will the aid have a real, positive and long term beneficial effect upon the recipient society? Given the contextual realities of geography, climate, demographics and history, will the aid that seems so beneficial turn out to be such over time?

To zero in on one component of the Millennium Goals: Long term would it be good or bad to lower child mortality in a society which already exceeds the carrying capacity of the territory it occupies? Or, to take another of the Millennium Goals: If a country actually has no viable economic reason to exist, just how does one go about developing it? With what? For what end?

Not wanting to seem to be a model of the flinty-eyed, cold-hearted realpolitiker, the Geek has a modest proposal to make. Ask every American family if it would like to donate 0.7 percent of its "GDP" (pre-tax income) to be transferred via the UN and its subsidiaries including NGO's and national governments alike. For those which reply in the affirmative, provide a means for automatic deduction from paycheck or bank account.

Of course honesty would require that that the families be informed that the UN, were it to be a private entity, would be subject to prosecution under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act. The same proviso must be entered regarding a number of NGO's to say nothing of recipient governments.

Honesty and fairness (both qualities high on the list of virtues espoused by the League of the High Minded) would also require a disclaimer not unlike those found on ads for new stock issues. It might read something like this: "History shows that most, if not all wealth transfers of this nature have failed in their purpose and brought about adverse consequences."

Bet Ban Ki-moon and Salil Shetty won't go along with this way of doing business. Realism and High Mindedness don't play well with each other.

Move Aside, G-7--The Big Posse Is Taking Over

BRIC and the rest of the Group of 20 have decided that the industrialised nations of the Group of 7 aren't doing a good enough job of mismanaging the global financial system. So, they want to move on in.

"Wait one, Geek! What's this BRIC thing?"

The acronym stands for the following countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China. These are the biggest of the so-called "emerging economies." They believe they are very, very important to the health and stability of the global financial system.

The new posse had a meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil a couple of days ago. At the meeting last Friday, which preceded a conference of the finance ministers and central bankers from the G-20 nations, the president of Brazil blamed the current financial meltdown and its consequence, a global recession, on the G-7 states.

Well, golly, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, you must be a combination of Allen Greenspan and Sherlock Holmes to have figured that out. It seems about as difficult as determining that a heart attack starts with the heart.

And, whether President Lula likes it or not, the countries of the G-7 are the economic heart of the planet. That reality governs whether you look at the global economy from the perspective of Beijing, or Moscow, or East Clearfahrt, North Dakota.

An equally unpleasant reality is that the United States sits at the very center of the Earth's economic heart. This is true whether one looks at consumption and all the global activity that liberal bete noir creates or finance and all that implies in the movement for good or ill of capital, risks and jobs.

The Brazilian president and his confreres want, even demand, a greater role for the emerging economies of BRIC and the other G-20 members as well as the lesser developed countries in the creation and running of a new international financial structure. In Lula's words "a new, more open and inclusive governance."

Right. The Geek agrees. It's a nice idea. Utopian even. But, the Geek wonders, just who is going to participate in this more open and inclusive system?

Obviously, the lads from BRIC believe they should play a major role. OK. Why not?

If the Geek remembers correctly, back in the 1930s and even in the 1950s there were economists predicting that Brazil along with Argentina would rival or even surpass the US economically by the end of the 20th Century. What happened? To compress a long and dreary history punctuated from time to time with blood, both states careened from Statism of the Left to Statism of the Right. This lurching in a drunkard's walk search for prosperity had the wondrous effect of retarding both countries.

The Russian experience with open and inclusive markets is, if one feels charitably inclined, minimal. The Russians have shown over the course of the past century that they are equally inept at operating command economies, a wide-open frontier market, and the new, improved Putin-directed hemi-demi-semi capitalist system. There is no doubt that the Kremlin input to a new global system would be more to the perceived advantage of Russia than the rest of the world.

The same may be said of China. The Chinese Miracle of Growth has been predicated upon the rampant exploitation of labor, wholesale destruction of the environment and promotion of greed on a level which would (almost) shame the famed Robber Barons of the US more than a century ago. Furthermore, the Chinese Miracle of Growth would not have happened without the ill-advised giveaway brokered by President Clinton around ten years ago. The Chinese neo-mandarinate has copious skills focused with laser intensity on the promotion of Chinese strategic interests. Trade and finance are like guns and warships--instruments of national power. Period.

While India has torn itself away (in part) from its long love affair with Left Statism, its current growth is predicated upon a small sector of overall economic activity with the result that the distribution of wealth in the country is even more deformed (if such could be possible) than it is in the United States. India has a large population of very poorly paid individuals for whom the government still believes it has a responsibility. Wealth transfers (both internal and from external sources) of a very major nature will be necessary in the short- and mid-term if the needs of this economically marginal majority are to be met--and, Indian political stability not more impaired than it already has been.

President Lula averred that the IMF agrees with the crucial nature of the developing countries to the world economy by quoting a statement by the Fund's president to the effect that seventy-five percent of the global economic growth will be seen in the developing world. Duh. Percentages are a sleazy game to play. The IMF chief and Lula both know that very small absolute changes become very large percentage shifts when the starting point is low.

Don't get the idea that the Geek is a cheerleader for the fad of the past twenty years--globalization--let alone the dictatorial thuggery engaged in by the IMF and World Bank in promoting the interlocking agendas of globalization and privatization. He is not. The human costs of these handmaidens of change have been high, too high. The impact of privatization and the movement of capital across borders, particularly as enforced by the World Bank and IMF, has been huge, and largely negative. The Law of Unintended Consequences was invoked as seen by the election of such as Chavez and Morales.

The same Law may be invoked again--soon. And, not to the advantage of the US and other members of the G-7. The negatives of globalization and privatization have rested too hard on the lesser developed countries of the world. The benefits have accrued too exclusively to the G-7 and (much as the governments would deny it) BRIC countries as well.

The uniquely Western tendency toward recurrent waves of guilt over success and prosperity as well as the drive to "fairness" and "equality" which break the surface of Western thought so often and so strongly make most of the G-7 countries ripe for acceptance of the argument put forth at the BRIC meeting. The message? It's time for a change.

The Geek agrees that change is necessary. But, it must not be a "change" dictated by debtor nations, or the ambitious and far from altruistic BRICers. Any movement by the US toward embracing necessary changes in the international finance system must be made in the same way as conservative foreign policy generally.

Proceed from a realistic understanding of national and strategic interests of the United States, first and foremost; understand the historical context driving the actions of all the actors; go with a course of action which meets American needs and interests at the lowest realistic loss to others.

Anything else will bring the invariable Law of Unintended Consequences into play again.