Enough of the personal stuff. For better or worse (mostly worse), there's a wider world out there. Here's a link to the piece I did last week for Antiwar.com, about the U.S. and Iran. I make a case that we would be better off recognizing Iran diplomatically, establishing an embassy and using it to learn more. We know even less about Iran than we did about Iraq prior to attacking them, yet some Americans still want to initiate a "preventive" war with Iran (I've just read Norman Podhoretz's lengthy piece and I'll analyze it in a later blog).
I also have some comments about the latest funding bill for the Iraq war, about which I'm less pessimistic than some antiwar people.
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2 comments:
Are North Korea and Cuba successes?
I would say no, as both countries have not joined the "free world" and present threats to the US and/or allies. Also, they both have poor human rights records.
Vietnam is a success, however, as we are starting to trade with them and their human rights record is not bad.
So, it seems taking a "hard line" does not produce very good results, does it.
It took a long time and a fair amount of controversy before we started trading with Vietnam. Orange County probably has as many Vietnamese-Americans as any place in the country, and restoring relations with Vietnam was controversial among them; many had fresh and unpleasant memories of the communist regime. But you are right, now that relations are restored and trade is ongoing, things have improved and even some of the old hardliner Vietnamese-Americans are not just resigned to the situation but seeing opportunities. Economic sanctions are tempting to many, but they seldom weaken a regime enough to makes it fall and end up hurting the already-oppressed populace more than they hurt the rulers.
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