Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan
“Isolationists must not prevail in this new debate over foreign policy,” warns Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “The consequences of a lasting American retreat from the world would be dire.”
To make his case against the “Isolationist Temptation,” Haass creates a caricature, a cartoon, of America First patriots, then thunders that we cannot become “a giant gated community.”
Understandably, Haass is upset. For the CFR has lost the country.
Why? It colluded in the blunders that have bled and near bankrupted America and that cost this country its unrivaled global preeminence at the end of the Cold War.
No, it was not “isolationists” who failed America. None came near to power. The guilty parties are the CFR crowd and their neocon collaborators, and liberal interventionists who set off to play empire after the Cold War and create a New World Order with themselves as Masters of the Universe.
Consider just a few of the decisions taken in those years that most Americans wish we could take back.
After the Soviet Union withdrew the Red Army from Europe and split into 15 nations, and Russia held out its hand to us, we slapped it away and rolled NATO right up onto her front porch.
Enraged Russians turned to a man who would restore respect for their country. Did we think they would just sit there and take it?
How did bringing Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into NATO make America stronger, safer and more secure? For it has surely moved us closer to a military clash with a nuclear power.
In 2014, with John McCain and U.S. diplomats cheering them on, mobs in Independence Square overthrew a pro-Russian government in Kiev that had been democratically elected and installed a pro-NATO regime.
Putin’s response: Secure Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol by retaking Crimea, and support pro-Russian Ukrainians in Luhansk and Donetsk who preferred secession to submission to U.S. puppets.
Fortunately, our interventionists failed to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Had they succeeded, we almost surely would have been in a shooting war with Russia by now.
Would that have made us stronger, safer, more secure?
After the attack on 9/11, George W. Bush, with the nation and world behind him, took us into Afghanistan to eradicate the nest of al-Qaida killers.
After having annihilated some and scattered the rest, however, Bush decided to stick around and convert this wild land of Pashtuns, Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks into another Iowa.
Fifteen years later, we are still there.
And the day we leave, the Taliban will return, undo all we have done, and butcher those who cooperated with the Americans.
If we had to do it over, would we have sent a U.S. army and civilian corps to make Afghanistan look more like us?
Bush then invaded Iraq, overthrew Saddam, purged the Baath Party, and disbanded the Iraqi army. Result: A ruined, sundered nation with a pro-Iranian regime in Baghdad, ISIS occupying Mosul, Kurds seceding, and endless U.S. involvement in this second-longest of American wars.
Most Americans now believe Iraq was a bloody trillion-dollar mistake, the consequences of which will be with us for decades.
With a rebel uprising against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, the U.S. aided the rebels. Now, 400,000 Syrians are dead, half the country is uprooted, millions are in exile, and the Damascus regime, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, is holding on after five years.
Meanwhile, we cannot even decide whether we want Assad to survive or fall, since we do not know who rises when he falls.
Anyone still think it was a good idea to plunge into Syria in support of the rebels? Anyone still think it was a good idea to back Saudi Arabia in its war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has decimated that country and threatens the survival of millions?
Anyone still think it was a good idea to attack Libya and take down Moammar Gadhafi, now that ISIS and other Islamists and rival regimes are fighting over the carcass of that tormented land?
“The Middle East is arguably the most salient example of what happens when the U.S. pulls back,” writes Haass.
To the CFR, the problem is not that we plunged headlong into this maelstrom of tyranny, tribalism and terrorism, but that we have tried to extricate ourselves.
Hints that America might leave the Middle East, says Haass, have “contributed greatly to instability in the region.”
So, must we stay indefinitely?
To the CFR, America’s role in the world is to corral Russia, defend Europe, contain China, isolate Iran, deter North Korea, and battle al-Qaida and ISIS wherever they may be, bleeding our country’s military.
Nor is that all. We are also to convert Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan into pro-Western preferably democratic countries, and embrace “free trade,” accepting the imported merchandise of all mankind, even if that means endless $800 billion trade deficits, bleeding our country’s economy.
Otherwise, you are just an isolationist.
Washington (CNN)
Fifty prominent Republican foreign policy and national security experts — many veterans of George W. Bush’s administration — have signed a letter denouncing Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy and pledging not to vote for him.
The letter, first reported by The New York Times Monday, warns: “We are convinced that in the Oval Office, he would be the most reckless President in American history.”
Because Trump is against the endless wars that keep us safe and protect american interests, he is reckless….upsetting the IMC, we can’t have that now, can we?
Jackass’s, all 50 of them and the horses they rode in on.
CFR was started and still controlled by the Rockefellers. Treasonous son of bitches every one of them but they own part of the Federal Reserve. They issue and control our currency/ debt.
For now they are truly Masters of the Universe .How do you convince Americans these people are our real enemies ?
How deep are our reserves of international goodwill? We must be getting close to the botom of the barrel.
I don’t disagree with the article overall but Mr. Buchanan totally ignores the gorilla in the room, the Petro Dollar System.
Let me start by saying the United States would have never gone into the Middle East if it weren’t for OIL and more importantly the need to defend the Petro Dollar System.
The Petro Dollar System was a stroke of Genius on the part of Henry Kissinger and President Nixon in the early 1970s but it was a deal made with the Devil. The Devil in this case was the corrupt regime of Saudi Arabia. And the deal was the United States could continue to live beyond it means and maintain a “Higher standard of living” and to continue with the unsustainable “welfare State” for a few more decades.
When Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990 the primary reason Bush 1 decided to go to war with Iraq wasn’t so much a concern for Kuwait as the concern that Saddam would continue on south and take over Saudi Arabia. If Saddam had conquered Saudi Arabia that would have been the end of the Petro Dollar System and the control of Oil in the middle and control of the worlds monetary system would have shifted to Russia.
The second war with Saddam wasn’t about “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, that was just the excuse. The real reason, the one not talked about is that Saddam was getting ready to sell oil for Euros. That was a direct threat to the Petro Dollar System which would have weakened the Dollar sending the Dollar into decline.
Libya, what did Gaddafi do? Something about human rights violation, I don’t remember exactly the excuse because it really doesn’t matter, it was bull shit. The real reason was that he threatened to start selling oil for Gold, again a threat to the Petro Dollar System.
The problem with dealing with the Devil, It starts with you enjoying what you didn’t earn, it ends with you paying a horrible price. That’s where we’re at, we’re about to pay the price.