Thursday, September 21, 2006
Iran
John Bolton's current appearances in the media in response to Iran's recent actions and inactions have been bracing. Iran has been humilating the UN, transparently jerking it around to gain street cred amongst failed states; meanwhile France returns to its default appeasement-mind-meld and China sees profit to be made; China could care less. Strange you hear no voices from the ranks of those in the US, whose favorite phrase previously was, “its just for oil”, decrying China for its greed and cynicism. So much for international and political solidarity in a moment of crucial moral reckoning.
David Brooks powerfully notes in his 9/21 NYT op-ed that the public grasps the threat the West faces and that the public also recognizes the enervated response of many in leadership positions to that threat:
…millions of Americans believe the pope has nothing to apologize for. They regard the vicious overreaction to his speech, like the vicious overreaction to the Danish cartoons, as another sign that some sort of intellectual disease is sweeping through the Arab world.
What these Americans see is fanatical violence, a rampant culture of victimology and grievance, a tendency by many Arabs to blame anyone other than themselves for the problems they create. These Americans don’t believe they should lower their standards of tolerable behavior merely for the sake of multicultural politeness, and they are growing ever more disgusted with commentators and leaders who are totally divorced from the reality they see on TV every night.
… we are drifting toward a policy that does not match the threat we face. Extremism is not an isolated cult in the Muslim world. It is a diverse and vibrant movement…