[lit-ideas] Re: Motive, and the quality of foreign policy
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 08:07:38 -0700
Omar,
You wrote below ". . .and often brutal or deceptive but still more
reasonable than what I suspect Lawrence and Eric would propose today."
Why do you need to suspect what I would propose today when I have actually
stated it in a note posted under the subject title and one responding to a
review Eric posted? Furthermore I have said any number of times that I am
supportive of the diplomatic attempts by several nations to 1) stop Iran
from developing nuclear weapons or 2) allow inspectors to verify that Iran
isn't developing nuclear weapons. In drawing attention to the proximity of
the normalization of relations with Libya to the Ahmadinejad letter, I
argued that this could plausibly be shown to be a Realistic (as in
Morgenthau's definition of Political Realism) approach to the Iranian
problem. I believe it can be seen from my language that I approved of this
approach (assuming an association between Libyan normalization and diplomacy
with Iran).
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 6:58 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Motive, and the quality of foreign policy
--- John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 5/16/06, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> > Apart from a
> > couple of military adventures like Korea and
> Vietnam,
> > where the US faired rather poorly, much of the US
> > policy toward the Communist block could be
> described
> > as appeasement.
>
> This statement is nonsense: Containment was not
> appeasement.
*I did later qualify that statement. Yes, the US
applied containment but it also applied measures that
from Lawrence's perspective would qualify as
appeasement. There was communication, including
face-to-face meetings between the US and
Soviet/Chinese statesmen. There was some economic
co-operation. It is doubtful that the Soviet Union
would have deconstructed itself in a relatively
peaceful manner, or that the Communist China would
have embarked on a massive reform program, if it were
not for these contacts. Iran might have had its
Gorbachoff, Khattami, but the US wouldn't deign to
talk to him and so Gorbachoff went down.
Also, containment worked much better on the economic
and diplomatic levels than on the military level.
(e.g. Korea and Vietnam) The pursuit of containment
also produced "blowback", for example in Afghanistan
and in Iran. The US policies in the Cold War were of
course highly realpolitical and often brutal or
deceptive but still more reasonable than what I
suspect Lawrence and Eric would propose today. That is
what I was trying to say.
O.K.
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