Mr. Trump isn’t the problem, but among the symptoms of the problem are that the director and deputy director of the FBI have been fired for cause as the Bureau virtually became the dirty-tricks arm of the Democratic National Committee, and that, as the Center for Media Studies and Pew Research have both recorded, 90% of national-press comment on Mr. Trump is hostile. Mr. Trump may have aggravated some of the current nastiness, but his chief offense has been breaking ranks with the bipartisan coalition that produced the only period of absolute and relative decline in American history.
I think Black is too harsh on George W. Bush but this column is otherwise excellent.
It is not possible to be harsh enough on George W. Bush.
But is indeed a good column.
I believe we had established during the seemingly endless comments debates that it was George H. W. Bush who deserved far more criticism for declining to take advantage of the real window of opportunity in 1991. There was no al-Qaeda, the most radical Jihadis were still bottled up in Afghanistan, Khomeini was dead leaving Iran adrift. Assad Sr. in Syria had just won the Lebanon war, so he was more concerned about looting that country than getting involved in anything that was going on in Iraq, especially since his Soviet benefactors had collapsed. Christian Assyrians hadn’t yet abandoned Iraq.
We should’ve re-drawn the map just like we were doing in Eastern Europe. Just like we’re doing now, for all intents and purposes. Why was it so essential to preserve fake countries in the Middle East when we were carving them up in Eurasia? Decentralization was once the culmination of a thousand years of history in Europe. Why should conglomeration be considered so inevitable?
Aside from that, the other big problem was all the no-fly zone nonsense, slap-on-the-wrist surgical strikes, ineffectual sanctions, inspection charades throughout the 90s.
All that did was give the Arabs resiliency and time to radicalize while we were too busy congratulating ourselves about how our silly plans couldn’t possibly fail because “more than seven decades” of the liberal religion of humanity had decreed the end of history. How anyone pines for the old ‘New World Order’ is beyond me. George Will of all people, who wrote not too long ago about the end of America’s holiday from history, should know better.
You are bankrupt. One could make a case that some actors have encouraged this, Osama for one, claimed it was really about draining the money from America.
You are incredibly broke, but you own the currency of record, so you can just print. That makes you even poorer in real terms.
The Chinese own a vast amount of treasuries, more that 3 trillion, which is down from almost 4 trillion held in 2014. They stand to lose if America tanks so they have been mildly supportive. With the trade war coming in to play many things will change.One thing they have done is made a large push to petro currancy and it will not be fun for America in any trade war.