Friday News Roundup - International
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-03-22/friday-news-roundup-international
President Barack Obama meets with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. World powers probe unconfirmed reports of a chemical weapons attack in Syria. And banks in Cyprus remain closed. A panel of journalists joins guest host Tom Gjelten for analysis of the week's top international news stories.
Guests
Michael Hirsh
chief correspondent at National Journal magazine and author of "At War with Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering its Chance to Build a Better World."
Susan Glasser
editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine.
Hisham Melhem
Washington bureau chief for Al-Arabiya News Channel.
Comments
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Please ask the panel:
- The US has been confronted for years and years by opposing leaders who
resort to bluster and outlandish (seemingly pyrrhic) threats. Why do US
politicians respond so often with fear and counter threats? (US invaded Iraq
because Saddam threatened with non-existent WMDs.) e.g. What benefit
is gained by North Korean/Iranian saber rattling? Or by "bomb bomb Iran"
notions?
- Are Netanyahu's "red lines" mere negotiation tactics or real intent?
Please discuss getting Israel to admit to and then eliminate their nuclear weapons program as part of getting Iran to stop their program.
There is a total disconnect between the discussion in the past hour and this one.
In the last hour the panel concluded that our Congress sees balancing budgets and paying down the debt as the number 1 priority - even though this is going to slow down the economic recovery. You pretty much concluded that this is done deal.
Now the panel has reached a consensus that the US should intervene in Syria & not doing so will have been a great mistake. You are talking about going to war, which means huge expenditures. Who is going to pay those costs? Is Congress going to authorize this spending? No. The nation is war weary. Our troops have only recently reached some kind of recovery from the total exhaustion of the middle years of the Iraq war. Selling them on a new war would be extremely difficult. So don't blame Obama alone.
We will be leaving billions of dollars of assets in Afghanistan because we cannot afford to bring them back & because you really could only sell them at a used car lot. You are asking the US again to be the policeman to the world! You say no one is asking the US to be the policeman to the world, but each time a military crisis arises the supporters turn to the US and say "please help us; why aren't you helping us." The same thing happened with Libya. There were loud clamors for our military to become involved and also a push from the Republican side as a political move in the run up to the Presidential election.
Why us? What about Turkey ... Egypt ... Saudi Arabia? What about NATO, of which Turkey is a member?
Are all those countries affected by the situation in Syria going to fund our intervention? I haven't heard anything other than these clamors for US intervention.
I am amazed at the media panel today. If it were up to Michael Hirsh, Susan Glasser, and Hisham Melhem, the US would be bombing Iran, taking over Syria, and lobbing preemptive nukes at North Korea. Mr. Melhem is particularly bellicose saying the President needs to wade in personally in all areas; in fact, IF the US were to follow his preferences, there would be no need for a Secretary of State at all - Think of the money that could be saved if the President does all the foreign negotiating, planning, and personally jogging around the world leading troops into battle after battle. He hedged his remarks saying the US doesn't need to be the "world policeman" but immediately called for more intervention.
Of course, if Mr. Melham is immersed in middle eastern culture, and considering the lengthy string of strongmen who have wielded power in the area, maybe he is inured to violence and expresses the regional preference for it. That, of course, runs contrary to much of the west.
Even Ms. Glasser piled on with remarks about the deaths in Syria and how the US must dive in. Later she admitted that NObody really knows who is who in Syria - which segment of the rebels is pushing which agenda; the remark came that the rise in suicide bombings there gives cause to wonder if true terrorists are taking the lead.
Frankly, all this saber rattling gets so noisy as to drown out any alternatives - and what ally of the US wants to jump in against any of the threat mongers?
"IF the US were to follow his preferences, there would be no need for a Secretary of State at all "
The President should set the agenda for foreign policy and the SOS should carry it out. Problem is, Misters Obama and Kerry disagree on some things. But, as a servant of the FG, Mr. Kerry should put his personal preferences aside and carry out the will of his President.
"Incompetence: when you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do".
I actually have a sense, 203cc, that we are in agreement on this subject. The US should stay out unless the health and safety of our citizens at home are directly threatened. The problem is, on the other hand, that some people say we must "protect American interests" without defining what that means. And when you don't define your terms precisely, eventually, anything you want gets defined as "American interests" and you end up in Lybia or Syria.
Listening to yesterday's program made me apoplectic and thankfully I was not able to leave a comment or question on the air. It seems to me that the speakers do not understand that many Americans were unwilling supporters of the war in Afghanistan, Desert Storm, the Gulf War, and will undoubtably say "enough" to a "boots on the ground" Syrian invasion. The human suffering in those affected countries is beyond my imagination, and the thought of current and future bloodshed is horrifying to me. My preference would be that we offer humanitarian aid only. I don't think anything we do that involves military action will change the problem. Formally fighting a war in Syria is a bad idea. So many reasons why the idea stinks. For starters, to do so we would have to ally ourselves with the Russians among other former/current foes, and aren't they supporting Assad? Are we prepared to change?
I am sick and tired of America taking the role of mommy to the world.
I feel the three panalists should volunteer for the Free Syrian Army if they are so passionate about the cause. My son and my neighbors sons and daughters have spent enough time fighting stupid wars for chickenhawks.