rank amateurs – Moe Lane

You know, when GEORGE W. BUSH propped up a puppet strongman…

…then by GOD that strongman stayed both propped up and a puppet. There was none of this nonsense where the strongman would go off in a wild tangent with the sudden emergency powers and the apologetics for terrorist attacks against an ally and the counter-rioting/nascent revolutions. No, the understanding was simple. Keep the country stable; don’t shoot down people in the street and don’t lock up the non-violent opposition; and don’t embarrass that nice Uncle Sugar – and his even nicer no-limit credit card. Do that, and the not-kings got to keep their not-thrones*.

Honestly, rocket science this is not. If you had told me, back in 2007, that even a Democratic President would be unable to pass Realpolitik 101 in 2012, then I would have… well, honestly, first I would have wondered if Hillary Clinton had had a stroke or something. But I’d still would have been incredulous at the idea that such simple concepts as the above could have been so thoroughly mucked up. I sometimes wonder what infuriates the American Left** more: that their self-anointed Messiah Barack Obama doesn’t seem to have a foreign policy more sophisticated than Do whatever Bush did, or that Obama’s so incredibly bad at even that…

Continue reading Obama’s would-be Egyptian puppet Mohammed Morsi is… not working out.

Now it may be because I’m this horrible, horrible neoconservative Right-Wing Death Beast and everything – but I have to admit: articles like this confuse me.

The United States faced increasing pressure on Tuesday as the Palestinian quest for statehood gained support from Turkey and other countries, even as the Obama administration sought an 11th-hour compromise that would avoid a confrontation at the United Nations next week.

With only days to go before world leaders gather in New York, the maneuvering became an exercise in brinkmanship as the administration wrestles with roiling tensions in the region, including a sharp deterioration of relations between three of its closest allies in the region: Egypt, Israel and Turkey.

…But then again, I am a neocon RWDB, which means that I take the UN as seriously as it deserves to be treated… which is to say: when it comes to Israel, not at all.

Continue reading The infinitely avoidable US/UN Palestine showdown.