Today's Juan Cole entry: The Revolutionary versus The Statesman

[LibeMatt]

At the top of:

www.juancole.com

(also read the next entry down, which talks about the impending razing of Fallujah and its possible consequences)

This an excellent, detailed, and well-reasoned essay on just why Bush's revolutionary foreign policy will be disastrous for America and the world. Some highlights:

"The decision between Bush and Kerry will shape the world Americans live in during the next four years. Even though Bush has been called the "CEO President," that isn't how he has behaved. Bush has overthrown two governments and announced the imminent demise of several others. Bush is a revolutionary in Asia, a Robespierre. At least one of Bush's revolutions is now mired in its Terror phase. What a real CEO thinks about Bush is obvious from the Paul O'Neill / Ron Suskind memoir of life on the Bush cabinet. Kerry in contrast is a statesman committed to navigating the status quo without producing unnecessary turbulence.

<snip>

"Al-Qaeda has ambitions beyond just blowing a few things up, no matter how horribly. It is now a cadre organization, that is, it consists of a few thousand committed fanatics. But it wants to be a political party. That is the significance of Bin Laden's most recent videotape. He is posing as a champion of "freedom" in the Muslim world (mainly freedom from US hegemony, but he maintains also freedom from authoritarian and corrupt regimes in the region backed by the US). Bin Laden is making a play not just to be a cult leader but to succeed to the position of Gamal Abdul Nasser as an anti-imperialist icon in the region. Ultimately al-Qaeda would like to get control of entire states, and merge them into an Islamic superstate, a new caliphate. It is a crackpot idea that will fail, but many crackpot ideas that fail (e.g. the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia) do a great deal of damage along the way.

"George W. Bush has never been able to see clearly the nature of this threat, which experts call asymmetrical. This word is a fancy way of saying that small groups can now accomplish things that only states used to be able to. Bush is trapped in Cold War thinking, where all major threats derive from other states, from other countries. His first thought after September 11 was that Iraq was behind it.

<snip>

"So the choices are clear. Those who want a revolutionary who will risk further wars and instability, should vote for Bush. Those who want someone who will use diplomacy to manage the status quo and roll back asymmetrical threats should vote for Kerry."

[webtrainer]

1. his blog is a daily must-read (n/t)

[bloom]

2. I thought this was a very good summation of America's choices.

:kick: