Comments on: Mr. Vlahos’ Neighbourhood — Late Antiquity’s Upcoming Role in Constraining American Foreign Policy

By: Sunguh

Sunguh — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 20:26:51 +0000

I see the Jacksonian impulse as more likely than Chamberlain-style appeasement, a la the ‘Unfrozen Caveman Voter’. But I might have a skewed perception of things. This election will be very interesting.

By: Sandy P

Sandy P — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 16:39:18 +0000

IIRC, Ferguson wrote an article in 2004 for the WSJ that we have 4 choices ahead:

Islamofascists

Chicoms

Armed camps.

It’s been fun asking the Europeans who want US gone why they want to live under 1 of the other 3. The conversation seems to end at that point.

The less money we spend, the more the world has to spend and they don’t have our coffers, talent, vision and ingenuity.

Its lights may dim for awhile, but the shining city on the hill will be there. And it will be back.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 17:36:16 +0000

Great post.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 12:45:38 +0000

“To not assist this cultural housecleaning, Vlahos suggests, is to allow both the Ghazis and the Militias to compete with each other in demonizing the West, marginalizing any internal efforts at moderation in Islam, and closing off all options except the Roman tool of obliteration.”

Preventing “the demonizing of the West” (and the attendant weakening of, the economic, and physical, threat to the U. S.) is why American boots are on the ground in Iraq.

To prevent use of the “tool of obliteration” U.S. must be draconian in applicataion of it’s imposed peace (Fair but ruthless. No guilt over collateral damage – a practicality that Israel force often has – and Rome had).

By: Jim Bennett

Jim Bennett — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 02:35:32 +0000

On target in many ways, James. Rome came to depend upon its stream of slaves and slave-grown grains. We have no equivalentt, although oil is acting like it for the time being. But our ability to absorb $70/bbl oil without much fuss shows that we could quickly become independent of Muslim oil, and I see signs that we are on the verge of making national comittments needed for that transition.

Most foreigners, and many people within the Anglosphere don’t understand America’s quadripartite nature. Discrediting Bush’s foreign policy only discredits his peculiar Wilsonianism. Long before we would see anything like an American decline, we would see true Jacksonians come to power, with results that would startle most foreigners.