Why Bother: The New Isolationism

[Geee]

National Review:

 

The United States is backing off from the Middle East — and the Middle East from the United States.

America is in the midst of the greatest domestic-gas-and-oil revolution since the early 20th century. If even guarded predictions about new North American reserves are accurate, over the next decade the entire continent may become energy-independent, without much need of petroleum imports from the Middle East.

America’s diminishing reliance on the Persian Gulf coincides with mounting Chinese dependency on Middle Eastern oil and gas. So as the Persian Gulf becomes less important to us, it grows even more critical to the oil-hungry, cash-laden — and opportunistic — Chinese.

After two wars in the Middle East, Americans are as tired of our forces’ being sent over there as Middle Easterners are of having us there.

 

The usual Arab complaint against the United States during the Cold War was that it supported anti-communist authoritarians in the oil-rich Gulf and ignored democratic reform. After the 1991 Gulf War, the next charge was that America fought Saddam Hussein only to free an oil-rich, pro-American monarchy in Kuwait, without any interest in helping reformists in either Kuwait or Iraq.

After the Gulf War of 2003, there was widespread new anger about the use of American arms to force-feed democracy down the throat of Iraq. Finally, during the 2011 Arab Spring, the Arab world charged that the United States was too tardy in offering political support for insurgents in Egypt and Tunisia, and again late in “leading from behind” in helping European nations remove Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi. Now the Arab world is hectoring America to help overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

[Valin]

@Geee

 

Why isolationism new or old is a really *bad idea. A couple of years ago I looked up the flight time from Kabul to Knoxville. Its 14 hours...think about that. I'm sorry (well actually I'm not all that sorry) and I have some bad news for those paleo cons and libertarians that want us to pull back, and yes that means you Paulbots, but A. our two oceans no longer protect us, B. we have interests all over the world, C. its not 1837 any more, the world is a small interconnected place and getting more so every day, D. whether you like it or not we are in fact the police force that maintains the world trading system (for the record this is a good thing), E. some nation is going to be the major power in the world, who else would you rather see...China....Russia....France...Brazil?

So stop pulling a blanket over your head and pretend that all will be well if we push back...in other words Get A Frigin Clue!

/rant

 

 

*By bad what I really mean is dumber than a box of rock...something only someone with an IQ 3 points lower than a flatworm could think is the way to go.