Dictating How Other Nations Should Be Governed

[Draggingtree]

The American Conservative: Dictating How Other Nations Should Be Governed

By DANIEL LARISON • August 4, 2014, 9:30 AM

Jackson Diehl complains that the Georgian government is holding abusive former officials accountable:

 

This flouting of a U.S. red line by a small country might seem relatively inconsequential — Saakashvili, after all, is not under arrest but in Ukraine advising its new pro-Western government. But it is part of a larger trend. Ally after ally of the United States, including regimes that, like Georgia, depend heavily on Washington for military and economic aid, have begun openly defying the Obama administration and, in a few cases, deliberately humiliating its envoys.

 

Naturally, Diehl doesn’t even consider the possibility that the Georgian government might be justified in bringing charges against its abusive former president for his role in ordering a violent crackdown on opposition protesters seven years ago. He pays no attention to the merit of the decision, but simply concludes that it is “transparently political” because it happens to affect a politician with connections and friends in Washington. His complaint is essentially that Georgia today does not behave like the satrapy that some in Washington want it to be.

[Draggingtree]

Missing the Point on U.S.-Indian Relations

 

By DANIEL LARISON • August 4, 2014, 1:00 AM

Tunku Varadarajan suggests that the poor state of U.S.-Indian relations isn’t all that important:

Should America care? India has little or nothing to contribute to American efforts to tackle the crises in Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, and Iraq. It is a reluctant partner, at best, in Washington’s efforts to rein in Iran and will have no truck with the West in any showdown with Vladimir Putin and Russia. Its incessant push for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, while understandable for a country that is the world’s second-most populous, isn’t exactly in America’s interests: New Delhi and Washington frequently find themselves on different sides of votes on U.N. resolutions.

 

This is a remarkably short-sighted view of the potential value of the U.S.-Indian relationship. What Varadarajan says here is more or less accurate with respect to India’s role in the world,

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/missing-the-point-on-u-s-indian-relations/